News

HKU Landscape Students Return to Thai-Myanmar Border

Landscape architecture undergraduates from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) travelled over 400-kilometers along the Thai-Myanmar Border from Chiang Mai to Mae Sot in Thailand. For its second year, this landscape planning studio course is focusing on a set of controversial and long-delayed development projects along the border, including dams on the Salween and Yuam rivers, a coal mine concession in Chiang Mai province, and the planned large-scale water diversion tunnel from the Salween to Chao Phraya basins.

Students met with several environmental and human rights groups, including The Border Consortium (TBC), Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN), Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), ecologists from the Forest Restoration Research Unit (FORRU) and sociologists from the Center for Ethnic Studies and Development (CESD) of Chiang Mai University, and indigenous community groups in the Yuam and Ngao river basins. The students and their instructor Ashley Scott Kelly thank these organizations for helping make our visit a productive learning experience.

HKU landscape students on longboats within planned reservoir area on tributary of the Salween (Thanlwin/Nujiang) River, Thailand. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2024.
HKU landscape students on longboats within planned reservoir area on tributary of the Salween (Thanlwin/Nujiang) River, Thailand. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2024.
HKU landscape students meet with The Border Consortium (TBC) in Bangkok, Thailand. By Lee Jinyoung Jinnie, 2024.
HKU landscape students meet with The Border Consortium (TBC) in Bangkok, Thailand. By Lee Jinyoung Jinnie, 2024.
Benjakitti Forest Park, Bangkok, Thailand. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2024.
Benjakitti Forest Park, Bangkok, Thailand. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2024.
HKU landscape students speak with docents from the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) at Mae Moh Coal Mine Museum, Lampang province. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2024.
HKU landscape students speak with docents from the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) at Mae Moh Coal Mine Museum, Lampang province. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2024.
HKU landscape students meet with the Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN). By Kuan Pui Shan Kimmy, 2024.
HKU landscape students meet with the Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN). By Kuan Pui Shan Kimmy, 2024.
HKU landscape students doing seed preparation at Ban Mae Sa Mai Community Tree Nursery with Chiang Mai University's Forest Restoration Research Unit (FORRU), Thailand. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2024.
HKU landscape students doing seed preparation at Ban Mae Sa Mai Community Tree Nursery with Chiang Mai University's Forest Restoration Research Unit (FORRU), Thailand. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2024.
HKU landscape students meet with academics from Chiang Mai University's Center for Ethnic Studies and Development. By Kuan Pui Shan Kimmy, 2024.
HKU landscape students meet with academics from Chiang Mai University's Center for Ethnic Studies and Development. By Kuan Pui Shan Kimmy, 2024.
HKU landscape students meet with Mae Ngao indigenous people’s network, Mae Hong Son province, Thailand. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2024.
HKU landscape students meet with Mae Ngao indigenous people’s network, Mae Hong Son province, Thailand. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2024.
HKU landscape students at site of planned disposal area for 60-kilometer water diversion tunnel. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2024.
HKU landscape students at site of planned disposal area for 60-kilometer water diversion tunnel. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2024.
HKU landscape students on longboats within planned reservoir area on tributary of the Salween (Thanlwin/Nujiang) River, Thailand. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2024.
HKU landscape students on longboats within planned reservoir area on tributary of the Salween (Thanlwin/Nujiang) River, Thailand. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2024.
HKU landscape students view Karen/Kayin State, Myanmar from Tak province, Thailand. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2024.
HKU landscape students view Karen/Kayin State, Myanmar from Tak province, Thailand. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2024.
Mae La, Thailand’s largest refugee camp. By Lee Jinyoung Jinnie, 2024.
Mae La, Thailand’s largest refugee camp. By Lee Jinyoung Jinnie, 2024.
HKU landscape students meet with the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), Mae Sot, Thailand. By Tsui Tsz Shan Iris, 2024.
HKU landscape students meet with the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), Mae Sot, Thailand. By Tsui Tsz Shan Iris, 2024.
HKU landscape students viewing a casino in Myawaddy, Myanmar across the Moei River from Thailand. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2024.
HKU landscape students viewing a casino in Myawaddy, Myanmar across the Moei River from Thailand. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2024.

www.designforconservation.org/news/hku-landscape-students-return-thai-myanmar-border

Posted by: (Design for Conservation)


Thai-Myanmar Border Studio Final Review

HKU Landscape undergrads capped their senior year with the Final Review for our Thai-Myanmar Border Studio. This year, students focused on a set of controversial and long-delayed development projects along the Thailand-Myanmar border, including dams on the Salween and Yuam rivers, a coal mine concession in Chiang Mai province, industrial zones in Mae Sot, and the planned large-scale water diversion tunnel from the Salween to Chao Phraya basins. Taught by professor Ashley Scott Kelly and teaching assistant Sandra Saw Yu Nwe, this studio teaches students not merely how planners or architects or landscape architects might be involved in large-scale planning projects but also how cultural anthropologists or political scientists might approach, evaluate, and address development throughout Southeast Asia.

Students learn how development happens from both desktop research and field visits, covering topics including: environmental histories of northern Thailand and southern Myanmar; participatory and customary mapping; transnational environmental and human rights advocacy; land governance and tenure; and migration, labor and border industries. For 10 days in mid-March students traveled overland roughly 600 kilometers in Thailand from Chiang Mai to Mae Sot in Thailand, meeting with several environmental and human rights advocacy groups, including International Rivers, The Border Consortium (TBC), Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN), EarthRights International (ERI), and indigenous community groups.

After returning to Hong Kong, students individually spent 8 weeks to propose landscape planning strategies that together: react to strategic and long-running resistance through community mapping, villager research or citizen science; address power and knowledge in reforestation programs; enable or nurture multiple migration pathways in the agricultural sector; and confront investment and contested value systems in dual-governed regions.

At their final review, students defended their proposals to a large panel of experts, including: Prof. Emily Yeh (Dept. of Geography, University of Colorado; past president, American Association of Geographers); David Gallacher (Executive Director, Environment, AECOM); Prof. Jeff Hou (Dept. of Landscape Architecture, University of Washington); Winnie Law (HKU Centre for Civil Society and Governance); Alice Hughes (HKU School of Biological Sciences); Jiraporn Laocharoenwong (Dept. of Anthropology and Sociology, Chulalongkorn University); Jayde Roberts (School of Built Environment, Univ. of New South Wales); Sidh Sintusingha (Melbourne School of Design); Zali Fung (Social Equity Institute, Univ. of Melbourne); Merve Bedir (Center for Spatial Justice, Istanbul; Critical Media Lab, Basel); Peter Cobb (HKU Humanities and Digital Technologies, Faculty of Arts); and several planners and designers from HKU Planning, Architecture, and Landscape Architecture.

The students, Ashley, and Sandra express their gratitude to our jury members and HKU's continued support for engaging in essential discussions about landscape development across sectors and geographies in the region. Congratulations to the students!

Promotional video for HKU Thai-Myanmar Border Studio. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2023.
Final Review for Thai-Myanmar Border Studio. By Sandra Saw Yu Nwe, 2023.
Final Review for Thai-Myanmar Border Studio. By Sandra Saw Yu Nwe, 2023.
Final Review for Thai-Myanmar Border Studio. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2023.
Final Review for Thai-Myanmar Border Studio. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2023.
Final Review for Thai-Myanmar Border Studio. By Sandra Saw Yu Nwe, 2023.
Final Review for Thai-Myanmar Border Studio. By Sandra Saw Yu Nwe, 2023.
Final Review for Thai-Myanmar Border Studio. By Sandra Saw Yu Nwe, 2023.
Final Review for Thai-Myanmar Border Studio. By Sandra Saw Yu Nwe, 2023.
Situating science, impact scope and strategies for slow resistance on the Yuam River and its tributaries in northern Thailand. By Lai Man Ki Maisy, 2023.
Situating science, impact scope and strategies for slow resistance on the Yuam River and its tributaries in northern Thailand. By Lai Man Ki Maisy, 2023.
Situating science, impact scope and strategies for slow resistance on the Yuam River and its tributaries in northern Thailand. By Lai Man Ki Maisy, 2023.
Situating science, impact scope and strategies for slow resistance on the Yuam River and its tributaries in northern Thailand. By Lai Man Ki Maisy, 2023.
Situating science, impact scope and strategies for slow resistance on the Yuam River and its tributaries in northern Thailand. By Lai Man Ki Maisy, 2023.
Situating science, impact scope and strategies for slow resistance on the Yuam River and its tributaries in northern Thailand. By Lai Man Ki Maisy, 2023.
Situating science, impact scope and strategies for slow resistance on the Yuam River and its tributaries in northern Thailand. By Lai Man Ki Maisy, 2023.
Situating science, impact scope and strategies for slow resistance on the Yuam River and its tributaries in northern Thailand. By Lai Man Ki Maisy, 2023.
Indigenous-led forest restoration: From Community impact assessment to ecological potential in the uplands of Chiang Mai province. By Leung Wing Yan Kitty, 2023.
Indigenous-led forest restoration: From Community impact assessment to ecological potential in the uplands of Chiang Mai province. By Leung Wing Yan Kitty, 2023.
Dimensioning indigenous knowledge: A Village mapping toolkit for countering rapid assessments of Karen communities at Omkoi, Chiang Mai province. By Cheng Wai Jon Joni, 2023.
Dimensioning indigenous knowledge: A Village mapping toolkit for countering rapid assessments of Karen communities at Omkoi, Chiang Mai province. By Cheng Wai Jon Joni, 2023.
Final Review for Thai-Myanmar border studio 2023. By Sandra Saw Yu Nwe, 2023.
Final Review for Thai-Myanmar border studio 2023. By Sandra Saw Yu Nwe, 2023.
Final Review for Thai-Myanmar border studio 2023. By Sandra Saw Yu Nwe, 2023.
Final Review for Thai-Myanmar border studio 2023. By Sandra Saw Yu Nwe, 2023.

www.designforconservation.org/news/thai-myanmar-border-studio-final-review

Posted by: (Design for Conservation)


Trading Bays, Environmental Futures exhibition at Hong Kong Central Market

On Saturday, academics from the design schools of The University of Hong Kong and University of California, Berkeley opened an exhibition with a forum at Hong Kong's Central Market:

Trading Bays: Resilience Design Strategies for San Francisco Bay Area and China's Greater Bay Area

As an increasingly mainstream criteria for sustainability, "resilience" refers to the capacity for a system, whether urban or ecological, to function and rebound from disturbances. Trading Bays explores how architects, landscape architects and planners engage with the concept of "resilience" in visioning the future by focusing on the San Francisco Bay Area and China’s Greater Bay Area. The Forum discusses designs and planning proposals generated by students and faculty members of the University of Hong Kong and University of California, Berkeley between 2018 and 2022—a period in which both regions experienced significant shocks to their environmental, political and economic systems. Emphasizing that resilient strategies must not be based on simplified notions of technical efficiency, exhibited projects simultaneously push the limits of our physical environments while testing our capacities to govern and regulate diverse urban, landscape and coastal systems.

  • Exhibition: 25 March to 10 April 2023
  • Venue: G/F, Central Market, Interactive Wall Area
Trading Bays: Resilience Design Strategies for San Francisco Bay Area and China's Greater Bay Area. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2023.
Trading Bays: Resilience Design Strategies for San Francisco Bay Area and China's Greater Bay Area. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2023.

Ashley and four former HKU Master of Landscape Architecture students exhibited speculations on Hong Kong's environmental futures:

Environmental Futures: Engaging development through critical landscape planning in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area

未來環境—透過香港及大灣區的批判性景觀規劃引領發展

The works exhibited here are speculations on where landscape science and urban planning will be within the next decade. The emergence of new technologies for assessing, predicting, and monitoring landscape and ecological change signals a potential governance transition from the "environmental state" (生态立州) to the "predictive state". Predictive technologies are now prominent in applied landscape sciences and are leading towards the automated management and securitization of conservation landscapes. These advancements in technology are accompanied by powerful new collaborations between scientists and state planning agencies, such as in China's Ecological Redline Policy (生态红线), which are extending our planning institutions' remit into sensitive non-urban landscapes and socio-ecological systems. How will urban planners and ecologists come together to create the predictive state in the Greater Bay Area? Our ability to predict landscape change and thus ensure landscape resilience are converging but not without significant implications for environmental regulation, for data archiving and transparency, and for democratic participation and representation in development. These exhibited works each argue that landscape architects have an important role to play in negotiating between development-driven urban planning and conservation-oriented ecological science. These works explore how we predict and envision landscape resilience, including through ecological baselines, forecasting, backcasting, and future scenario-building. They deploy innovative strategies, such as: alternative value systems in the prediction of urban or rural ecosystem services and ecological corridors; and novel forms of social and environmental impact assessment, citizen science, and public engagement and deliberation. For Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area, recent proposals to develop lands of conservation value, such as country parks, necessitate new planning and design tools that not only aid ecological assessment but also simultaneously raise awareness of the negotiated ecologies of these landscapes. The works exhibited here approach this both from the outside, meaning applying theory and methods rarely brought to bear on these landscapes, and from within the technologies we use to value the environment.

這裡展出的作品是對未來十年內景觀科學和城市規劃的推測。評估、預測、監管景觀和生態變化的新技術的出現,預示著從 「生態立州」到「預測立州 」在治理上的潛在轉變。現時的預測技術在應用景觀科學中備受關注,可促進景觀保育的管理自動化和提供長遠保護。伴隨著科學家和國家規劃機構之間有力的新型合作——例如中國的生態紅線——這些科技的進步正將我們規劃機構的職權範圍擴展到敏感的非城市景觀和社會生態系統。城市規劃師和生態學家將如何共同創立大灣區的「預測立州」?我們預測景觀變化從而確保景觀延續性的能力正在趨同;但與此同時,對環境監管、數據檔案管理、數據透明度、以及對於發展的民主參與度和代表性,卻亦有著重大影響。這些展出作品分別論證了景觀建築師在發展趨動的城市規劃和保育導向的生態科學之間的談判中可以發揮重要作用。這系列作品探討我們如何預測和構想景觀韌性,包括通過研究生態基線、預測、回溯和建構未來情景。他們採用了創新的策略,例如:在預測城市或農村生態系服務和生態連廊方面提出不同價值觀;以及新形式的社會和環境影響評估、公眾參與的科研和商議。對於香港和大灣區來說,近年有關開發具潛在保護價值的土地(如郊野公園)的建議需要新的規劃和設計工具。這些工具不僅應該促進生態評估,同時也應提高對這些景觀的協商生態的認識。這裡展出的作品既從「外在」的這些鮮被探討的理論和方法出發,又從我們用來評核環境的技術的「內在」著手。

Exhibited works:

  • "Slow Science in Development: Ensuring principled ecological auditing for the Smart Earth era in Hong Kong’s Northern Metropolis" by Hui Chun Sing
  • "Conservation Watch: Nuanced modelling approaches for adaptive management of Hong Kong’s conservation landscapes" by David Shum Siu Kei
  • "Modulating Landscape Connectivity: Applying the gradient paradigm to modelling, design and management of Ecological Redlines in the Greater Bay Area" by Cindy Lai Chuxuan
  • "Making an Environmental Authority: Development, negotiation and the technical production of agricultural land under Hong Kong New Agriculture Policy" by Ceas Chong Yan Suen
Trading Bays: Resilience Design Strategies for San Francisco Bay Area and China's Greater Bay Area. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2023.
Trading Bays: Resilience Design Strategies for San Francisco Bay Area and China's Greater Bay Area. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2023.
Trading Bays: Resilience Design Strategies for San Francisco Bay Area and China's Greater Bay Area. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2023.
Trading Bays: Resilience Design Strategies for San Francisco Bay Area and China's Greater Bay Area. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2023.
Trading Bays: Resilience Design Strategies for San Francisco Bay Area and China's Greater Bay Area. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2023.
Trading Bays: Resilience Design Strategies for San Francisco Bay Area and China's Greater Bay Area. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2023.
Trading Bays: Resilience Design Strategies for San Francisco Bay Area and China's Greater Bay Area. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2023.
Trading Bays: Resilience Design Strategies for San Francisco Bay Area and China's Greater Bay Area. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2023.
Trading Bays: Resilience Design Strategies for San Francisco Bay Area and China's Greater Bay Area. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2023.
Trading Bays: Resilience Design Strategies for San Francisco Bay Area and China's Greater Bay Area. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2023.
Trading Bays: Resilience Design Strategies for San Francisco Bay Area and China's Greater Bay Area. By Kanisa Sattayanurak, 2023.
Trading Bays: Resilience Design Strategies for San Francisco Bay Area and China's Greater Bay Area. By Kanisa Sattayanurak, 2023.
Trading Bays: Resilience Design Strategies for San Francisco Bay Area and China's Greater Bay Area. By Kanisa Sattayanurak, 2023.
Trading Bays: Resilience Design Strategies for San Francisco Bay Area and China's Greater Bay Area. By Kanisa Sattayanurak, 2023.

Posted by: (ashleyscottkelly.com)


HKU Landscape Students Travel Along Thai-Myanmar Border

University of Hong Kong (HKU) students studying landscape planning travelled in March for roughly 600 kilometers along the Thailand-Myanmar border between Chiang Mai and Mae Sot in Thailand. Students met with several environmental and human rights advocacy groups, academics, and communities regarding a series of controversial and long-delayed development projects along the border, including dams on the Salween and Yuam rivers, a coal mine concession in Chiang Mai province, industrial zones in Mae Sot, and the planned large-scale water diversion tunnel from the Salween to Chao Phraya basins.

The students, their instructor Ashley Scott Kelly, and teaching assistant Sandra Saw Yu Nwe thank International Rivers, The Border Consortium (TBC), Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN), EarthRights International (ERI), indigenous community groups, and academics from Chiang Mai University and Chulalongkorn University for helping make our visit a productive learning experience.

HKU landscape students on longboats within planned reservoir area on tributary of the Salween (Thanlwin/Nujiang) River, Thailand. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2023.
HKU landscape students on longboats within planned reservoir area on tributary of the Salween (Thanlwin/Nujiang) River, Thailand. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2023.
Overlook at Omkoi district, Chiang Mai province, Thailand. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2023.
Overlook at Omkoi district, Chiang Mai province, Thailand. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2023.
Studio travel route (thick black line) from Chiang Mai to Mae Sot, Thailand. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2023.
Studio travel route (thick black line) from Chiang Mai to Mae Sot, Thailand. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2023.
HKU landscape students meet with EarthRights International (ERI) at the Mitharsuu Center for Leadership and Justice, Thailand. By Sandra Saw Yu Nwe, 2023.
HKU landscape students meet with EarthRights International (ERI) at the Mitharsuu Center for Leadership and Justice, Thailand. By Sandra Saw Yu Nwe, 2023.
HKU landscape students meet with the Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN). By Sandra Saw Yu Nwe, 2023.
HKU landscape students meet with the Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN). By Sandra Saw Yu Nwe, 2023.
Community mapping discussion with Omkoi Women’s Group, Chiang Mai province, Thailand. By Sandra Saw Yu Nwe, 2023.
Community mapping discussion with Omkoi Women’s Group, Chiang Mai province, Thailand. By Sandra Saw Yu Nwe, 2023.
HKU landscape students meet with Mae Ngao indigenous people’s network, Mae Hong Son province, Thailand. By Sandra Saw Yu Nwe, 2023.
HKU landscape students meet with Mae Ngao indigenous people’s network, Mae Hong Son province, Thailand. By Sandra Saw Yu Nwe, 2023.
HKU landscape students meet with Tak Chamber of Commerce, Mae Sot, Thailand. By Sandra Saw Yu Nwe, 2023.
HKU landscape students meet with Tak Chamber of Commerce, Mae Sot, Thailand. By Sandra Saw Yu Nwe, 2023.
Studio mid-term report developed and presented by students to organizations on the ground in northern Thailand, 2023.
Studio mid-term report developed and presented by students to organizations on the ground in northern Thailand, 2023.
Karen/Kayin State, Myanmar viewed from Tak province, Thailand. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2023.
Karen/Kayin State, Myanmar viewed from Tak province, Thailand. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2023.
Mae La, Thailand’s largest refugee camp. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2023.
Mae La, Thailand’s largest refugee camp. By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2023.
Industrial enclaves along the Thai-Myanmar border. By Sandra Saw Yu Nwe, 2023.
Industrial enclaves along the Thai-Myanmar border. By Sandra Saw Yu Nwe, 2023.

www.designforconservation.org/news/hku-landscape-students-travel-along-thai-myanmar-border

Posted by: (Design for Conservation)


1:50,000 Maps of Forest Loss and Land Cover for Tanintharyi

For Myanmar civil society engaged in conservation and sustainable development, it is often difficult to make connections between government-published information and current remote-sensing data on landscape change, if such data can easily be accessed at all. This post contains a new series of 125 maps for Tanintharyi Region at 1:50,000 scale matching the extent of the commonly used map series published in 2007 by the Myanmar Survey Department, Ministry of Agriculture & Irrigation (First edition 2007). This new series is freely downloadable.

Primary layers are from public sources, including forest loss year (2000-2021), land cover, villages, roads and streams. Additional features include protected areas (gazetted and planned), industrial zones, and linear infrastructure. Layers in these new maps were chosen and styled to emphasize landscape change over the past 20 years. For that reason, if forest loss occurred at any time since the year 2000, that loss is shown instead of current land or tree cover, regardless of any tree cover gain since the initial loss.

Development and Conservation Awareness Map (DCAM). By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2022.
Development and Conservation Awareness Map (DCAM). By Ashley Scott Kelly, 2022.

Format: All sheets are A1-size (594x841mm) at 150 DPI resolution, RGB color. Each sheet has a location diagram in the lower-right corner with the sheet numbers for all maps in the series. Each file is named with the MoA sheet number. For instance, for sheet 1198_16 the filename is: Dcam22v1_Sheet_1198-16.tif

Download map sheets:

Individual map tiles (low-quality JPG) can be downloaded by clicking a tile on this key map:

DCAM Map Sample, 2022.
DCAM Map Sample, 2022.
DCAM Map Sample, 2022.
DCAM Map Sample, 2022.
DCAM Map Sample, 2022.
DCAM Map Sample, 2022.

www.designforconservation.org/news/150000-maps-forest-loss-land-cover-tanintharyi

Posted by: (Design for Conservation)


Studio Laos 2022 Final Review

HKU Bachelor of Arts in Landscape Studies BA(LS) students capped their senior year with the Final Review for Studio Laos: Strategic Landscape Planning for the Greater Mekong. The studio focused on northern Laos's rapidly transforming landscapes along its border with southwest China. Co-taught by professors Ashley Scott Kelly and Xiaoxuan Lu, this studio teaches students not merely how planners or architects or landscape architects might be involved in large-scale planning projects but also how a cultural anthropologist or political scientist describes and assesses development across Southeast Asia.

Following the recently published pedagogy in Critical Landscape Planning during the Belt and Road Initiative (Kelly and Lu, 2021), students read from diverse literature critical of how development happens, covering histories and issues such as alternative value systems, context-specific responses to reductive policies and plans, and overlapping or patchworked development. Using that knowledge and their landscape studies education, students then individually analyzed the frictions between two development projects prior iterations of the studio had visited before the pandemic. Projects included botanic gardens, forest study plots, wildlife sanctuaries, community forests, hydropower and irrigation dams, water user groups, villages undergoing resettlement, highway upgrading, special economic zones or other enclaves, protected forests, permaculture farms, and rubber and other cash-crop plantations. Frictions between these projects include ideological frictions (such as between Western alternative and Chinese-backed approaches, or between northern science and ethnobotany), as well as practical frictions in these projects' capacities for sustainable development.

For the second half of the term, students individually developed landscape planning strategies, especially considering the persistent obstacles to sustainable development and ongoing shocks to socioeconomic and socioecological systems, such as transitions from small-scale ecotourism to mass nature tourism, large-scale infrastructure and enclosure, and rural-urban migration. At their final review, students defended their proposals to members from a range of Laos civil society, including: an NGO operating several wildlife sanctuaries across Southeast Asia; an NGO trialing coffee in northern Laos; a 30-year-old network of field biologists studying the eastern Himalayas; and Laos's oldest domestic development NGO. Other members of the students' jury included: landscape architects and geographers from the National University of Singapore and University of Technology Sydney; a landscape ecologist, an archeologist, and an impact assessment expert from HKU's Schools of Biology and Humanities and Centre for Civil Society and Governance; as well as architects and landscape architects from HKU's Faculty of Architecture.

The students, Ashley, and Xiaoxuan give their greatest appreciation to our jury members and our school's continued support for the important conversations had year-on-year concerning the development of landscapes across sectors and across geographies in the region. Congratulations students!

Development detours: Landscape genealogies for post-pandemic ecotourism in northern Laos. By Wong Hon Ting Bryan, 2022.
Development detours: Landscape genealogies for post-pandemic ecotourism in northern Laos. By Wong Hon Ting Bryan, 2022.
Development detours: Landscape genealogies for post-pandemic ecotourism in northern Laos. By Wong Hon Ting Bryan, 2022.
Development detours: Landscape genealogies for post-pandemic ecotourism in northern Laos. By Wong Hon Ting Bryan, 2022.
Development detours: Landscape genealogies for post-pandemic ecotourism in northern Laos. By Wong Hon Ting Bryan, 2022.
Development detours: Landscape genealogies for post-pandemic ecotourism in northern Laos. By Wong Hon Ting Bryan, 2022.
Development detours: Landscape genealogies for post-pandemic ecotourism in northern Laos. By Wong Hon Ting Bryan, 2022.
Development detours: Landscape genealogies for post-pandemic ecotourism in northern Laos. By Wong Hon Ting Bryan, 2022.
Development detours: Landscape genealogies for post-pandemic ecotourism in northern Laos. By Wong Hon Ting Bryan, 2022.
Development detours: Landscape genealogies for post-pandemic ecotourism in northern Laos. By Wong Hon Ting Bryan, 2022.
Development detours: Landscape genealogies for post-pandemic ecotourism in northern Laos. By Wong Hon Ting Bryan, 2022.
Development detours: Landscape genealogies for post-pandemic ecotourism in northern Laos. By Wong Hon Ting Bryan, 2022.
Bear cartography: Coordinating slowness in ecological and social science for a Luang Prabang sanctuary. By Liu Jiani Vicki, 2022.
Bear cartography: Coordinating slowness in ecological and social science for a Luang Prabang sanctuary. By Liu Jiani Vicki, 2022.
Bear cartography: Coordinating slowness in ecological and social science for a Luang Prabang sanctuary. By Liu Jiani Vicki, 2022.
Bear cartography: Coordinating slowness in ecological and social science for a Luang Prabang sanctuary. By Liu Jiani Vicki, 2022.
Linguistic landscapes: Promoting plural identities and nonformal learning in Luang Prabang province. By Zhao Ruoning Nina, 2022.
Linguistic landscapes: Promoting plural identities and nonformal learning in Luang Prabang province. By Zhao Ruoning Nina, 2022.
Negotiating habitat: Strategic appropriation of the infrastructures of ecotourism in a Laos protected forest. By Chung Won Seok John, 2022.
Negotiating habitat: Strategic appropriation of the infrastructures of ecotourism in a Laos protected forest. By Chung Won Seok John, 2022.
Negotiating habitat: Strategic appropriation of the infrastructures of ecotourism in a Laos protected forest. By Chung Won Seok John, 2022.
Negotiating habitat: Strategic appropriation of the infrastructures of ecotourism in a Laos protected forest. By Chung Won Seok John, 2022.
Negotiating habitat: Strategic appropriation of the infrastructures of ecotourism in a Laos protected forest. By Chung Won Seok John, 2022.
Negotiating habitat: Strategic appropriation of the infrastructures of ecotourism in a Laos protected forest. By Chung Won Seok John, 2022.
Ethnobotanical endangerment: Productive friction between ex-situ and in-situ cultural conservation for Laos's first botanical garden. By Lee Kai Chi Adam, 2022.
Ethnobotanical endangerment: Productive friction between ex-situ and in-situ cultural conservation for Laos's first botanical garden. By Lee Kai Chi Adam, 2022.
Ethnobotanical endangerment: Productive friction between ex-situ and in-situ cultural conservation for Laos's first botanical garden. By Lee Kai Chi Adam, 2022.
Ethnobotanical endangerment: Productive friction between ex-situ and in-situ cultural conservation for Laos's first botanical garden. By Lee Kai Chi Adam, 2022.
Ethnobotanical endangerment: Productive friction between ex-situ and in-situ cultural conservation for Laos's first botanical garden. By Lee Kai Chi Adam, 2022.
Ethnobotanical endangerment: Productive friction between ex-situ and in-situ cultural conservation for Laos's first botanical garden. By Lee Kai Chi Adam, 2022.
Ethnobotanical endangerment: Productive friction between ex-situ and in-situ cultural conservation for Laos's first botanical garden. By Lee Kai Chi Adam, 2022.
Ethnobotanical endangerment: Productive friction between ex-situ and in-situ cultural conservation for Laos's first botanical garden. By Lee Kai Chi Adam, 2022.
Ethnobotanical endangerment: Productive friction between ex-situ and in-situ cultural conservation for Laos's first botanical garden. By Lee Kai Chi Adam, 2022.
Ethnobotanical endangerment: Productive friction between ex-situ and in-situ cultural conservation for Laos's first botanical garden. By Lee Kai Chi Adam, 2022.

www.designforconservation.org/news/studio-laos-2022-final-review

Posted by: (Design for Conservation)


Landscape Architecture for COP26

COP26 just concluded after two weeks of intense debates, negotiations and compromises. New 2030 pledges, while steps in the right direction, now set a course for a catastrophic 2.4 degrees of global heating by 2100 (Climate Action Tracker.org). Much more needs to be done.

As landscape designers and planners help public and private sectors mobilize, implement and strengthen these pledges through projects such as sustainable land use planning, we must build guarantees into our projects at all scales that ensure diverse conceptions of sustainability.

As we mitigate coastal erosion, wildfires, floods, drought, and invasive species, we must not forestall democratic participation in the planning process. We must guarantee that technical decision-making is not further distanced from the human and non-human nature these mitigation strategies impact. Increased ecological efficiency and alternative technologies must preserve natural and cultural diversity.

As we decarbonize our modes of construction, we must scrutinize the lifecycle of construction technologies, including materials origins, and ensure the monitoring of our projects’ carbon budgets are robust. We must take a precautionary approach that is rigorously based on scientific uncertainty.

As we reduce and reverse deforestation and biodiversity collapse, we must avoid (not offset) habitat loss and fragmentation, acknowledge diverse land rights and livelihoods, and recognize and empower both formal and informal community conservation initiatives.

Landscape architecture at HKU focuses on understanding and engaging the overlapping technical, cultural and political dimensions of environmental change across scales and development sectors.

Policy and plans are necessary but are never enough. Sustainability is only possible through sustained engagement.

Don’t do development as usual.

Study Landscape at HKU

COP26 (1 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (1 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (2 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (2 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (3 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (3 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (4 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (4 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (5 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (5 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (6 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (6 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (7 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (7 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (8 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (8 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (9 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (9 of 9), 2021.
By Ashley Scott Kelly, HKU Division of Landscape Architecture, 2021.
By Ashley Scott Kelly, HKU Division of Landscape Architecture, 2021.
COP26 (1 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (1 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (2 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (2 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (3 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (3 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (4 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (4 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (5 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (5 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (6 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (6 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (7 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (7 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (8 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (8 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (9 of 9), 2021.
COP26 (9 of 9), 2021.
By Ashley Scott Kelly, HKU Division of Landscape Architecture, 2021.
By Ashley Scott Kelly, HKU Division of Landscape Architecture, 2021.

www.designforconservation.org/news/landscape-architecture-cop26

Posted by: (Design for Conservation)